


watch your heel crush, crushed, uh-oh

by mozaikmage



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Art School, Bad Pick-Up Lines, Chemistry puns, First Meeting, M/M, Nudity, art students, you know you're writing kuroo tetsurou when you have to google chemistry pickup lines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 23:42:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17838260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mozaikmage/pseuds/mozaikmage
Summary: “We have a new model today,” Suga whispers to Yaku when he walks into the figure drawing studio.Suga’s smirking in a way that makes Yaku frown suspiciously at him. “So what? We have new models all the time.”“But Yakkun,” Suga says, eyebrows wiggling now, “this one’s hot.”AU in which Yaku is an art student doing his best, and Kuroo is a life drawing model.





	watch your heel crush, crushed, uh-oh

**Author's Note:**

  * For [priin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/priin/gifts).



> I was at a figure drawing session a few weeks ago, came up with this concept, and immediately messaged Riin about it. Then I wrote it, because Riin tweeted about wanting more kryk fic to read  
> Title from "It's the end of the world as we know it" by R. E. M (again) (I keep using this song but it's very versatile okay)

“We have a new model today,” Suga whispers to Yaku when he walks into the figure drawing studio. 

Suga’s smirking in a way that makes Yaku frown suspiciously at him. “So what? We have new models all the time.” 

“But Yakkun,” Suga says, eyebrows wiggling now, “this one’s  _ hot _ .”

Yaku rolls his eyes and starts setting up his materials while Suga continues to talk. “ I think he’s a uni student too? He looks about our age, but I haven’t seen him around our campus so he might go somewhere else.” Suga jerks his head towards the model’s curtain. A pair of skinny, sweatpants-wearing legs stick out from behind it. 

“So ask him for his number or whatever, I don’t care.” Yaku slams his pad of newsprint on the easel with slightly more force than necessary and winces when the ancient wooden structure slides out from under the drawing pad. “Ugh.”

“Yakkun,” Suga sighs, like Yaku is missing a very basic fact here, “he’s  _ your _ type.”

“I don’t have a type,” Yaku protests, right as their professor gets up and starts the lecture. Their figure drawing classes have a structure: thirty minute lecture, two hours of drawing. 

The professor finishes demonstrating foreshortening basics and then the supposedly hot model steps out from behind the curtain onto the platform.

He’s tall, taller than Yaku by a long shot, and athletic. Good for studying muscle structure, Yaku thinks, because this is a learning environment and he’s here to draw, not ogle. The model’s face is half-hidden by a flop of soft-looking black hair, but his one visible eye looks like gold, the fluorescent studio lights making it shine. Yaku kind of wants to do some studies of the man’s profile, because, well, he looks interesting. Not hot, necessarily. Interesting.

It does  _ not _ mean Suga’s right.

“We’re starting with ten one-minute gestures, then three five-minutes, two tens, and twenties until the end of class,” the professor tells the model, who nods seriously and taps something into his phone, probably setting timers. The professor puts on his eighties pop playlist, and they start.

Suga and Yaku got to class early, so they have prime spots front and center before the model platform. The dude looks at Yaku, fucking winks at him, and slides out of his robe like he’s trying to be a movie star. He taps his phone and throws it to the corner of the platform, and then picks up the staff they have in the studio for a prop and leans against it. Yaku picks up his charcoal stick and gets to work, capturing the action in swift, bold strokes. He’s good at gestures. He’s got this.

The timer goes off and the model decides his next pose should be him doing a split.

Yaku does not break his charcoal in half, but it’s a near thing. “How are you holding that?” he demands, glaring up into the model’s gold eye.

The model smiles, but it seems strained. “With tremendous effort.” He glances at the timer on his phone and winces. “I haven’t tried this before. I did not realize how long a minute was.” Yaku snorts in spite of himself.

The timer beeps and the model falls over sideways, causing the class to giggle. He throws up victory signs with both hands and spins around into a new pose, this time sitting sideways with his head looking back to Yaku’s left.  “Now that we’ve broken the ice: hi, I’m Kuroo Tetsurou, and I’m a chem major at Meiji,” the model says. “Nice to meet you.” 

“Nice to meet you,” the class choruses. Suga’s elbowing Yaku, but Yaku ignores it. Kuroo’s one of  _ those  _ models, then. The kind that likes to talk to the class while they pose. It’s a little distracting, but whatever.

The girls are fawning over him, asking Kuroo all sorts of questions about his program, what year he’s in, does he know so-and-so at Meiji, things like that. Kuroo answers them graciously, but Yaku swears he can feel the model looking over at Yaku when he does. It’s probably just because of where Yaku’s standing. 

Kuroo’s clearly new to being a figure model. When the timer switches to five minutes, Kuroo keeps picking weirdly acrobatic poses that he has a hard time holding for the full length of the pose.

“Stop trying to show off, you’re going to sprain something that way,” Yaku finally snaps, after Kuroo decides to put one leg up on a chair and lean backwards.

Kuroo’s ears turn pink. “You’re not my real mom,” he retorts, but three minutes in Yaku can see Kuroo’s legs wobble with the effort of staying stretched like that. 

He decides to lie down on the platform for his next pose. “Don’t say a word,” he tells Yaku, pointing at him specifically before starting the timer. Suga cackles.

After the five-minute poses Kuroo gets to take a break, so he pulls on his sweatpants again and stretches, leaning forward like a cat. Yaku goes over to look at what Suga had drawn, so he’s not paying attention when Kuroo taps him on the shoulder. Yaku yelps.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to freak you out. What’s your name?” Kuroo grins at him. It must take an incredible amount of self-confidence, Yaku thinks, to try to chat someone up after they have seen you naked. Kuroo’s still not wearing a shirt, his tanned, toned abs on display for everyone to admire. 

“I’m Suga, the one zoning out over here is Yaku.” Suga whacks Yaku on the shoulder almost hard enough to dislocate it. 

“I wasn’t zoning out,” Yaku lies. “But uh, yeah. Yaku Morisuke. You really should think about your poses more, you keep shaking because you’re trying to hold a difficult stance for way too long.”

Kuroo gapes at him, and then laughs like a hyena. “Thanks for the advice,” he manages. “This is actually my third time doing this, but it turns out live modeling is harder than it looks, huh?” He pulls his arms back and does a stretch Yaku remembers from high school gym class. “I figured I’m in pretty good shape, and this pays better than selling candy at a convenience store, so my friend suggested I try it out. You guys know Akaashi? Photo major here? Or uh, Kozume Kenma in game design?”

Suga and Yaku exchange a blank look. “We’re drawing and painting, so we don’t share a lot of classes with those majors,” Yaku explains. 

“Ah, sucks. They’re cool guys.” Kuroo scratches the back of his neck, looking sheepish. “Okay, uh, I don’t know if this is normally a thing, but can I see what you drew, please? I’m just curious.”

Suga elbows Yaku again. Yaku sighs and grabs his newsprint pad. “Here,” he says, shoving it in Kuroo’s direction.

Kuroo visibly wilts, his weird hair spike thing drooping. What was he expecting? “You didn’t draw my face at all!”

“Of course I didn’t, these are  _ gestures, _ ” Yaku says. “You’re not supposed to draw details like facial features in poses under ten minutes.”

“I drew your face,” Suga says smugly. Kuroo looks at Suga’s pad, where Suga had, in fact, indicated the general planes of Kuroo’s face with thick strokes, more suggesting a face than actually drawing it out. Kuroo’s hair is a wide fuzzy smudge of gray vine charcoal. 

Kuroo pouts. “For the ten minute pose, you should draw my face,” he says to Yaku, smirking.

“We’re focusing on foreshortening today, so I probably won’t even be able to see your face clearly,” Yaku says. “But I do take portrait commissions. Five thousand yen for an A4-sized drawing.” Okay, he’s only ever done portraits of his family members for their birthdays and made up a price on the spot, but he could do it, probably.

Suga snickers, well aware of Yaku’s portrait drawing experience up to this point. “Yakkun’s really good! You should follow him on Insta, Kuroo-san!”

Yaku glares at Suga and hopes his expression is enough to communicate that Suga is a terrible meddler. Suga beams at him, unrepentant. Kuroo’s timer beeps, and it’s back to drawing. The professor explains what kind of poses he wants Kuroo to do, and Kuroo arranges himself on the drawing platform accordingly.

Except. Five minutes into the ten minute pose, Kuroo decides to move his left hand into a completely different position. Yaku was drawing that hand. He was outlining the fingers when Kuroo moved it and ruined everything.  “You can’t just change the pose halfway through, you asshole,” Yaku yells at him, smudging out the vine charcoal and redrawing the hand as a mitten shape. People who moved their hands did not deserve carefully drawn fingers.

“Sorry, Yakkun, my hand was cramping and  _ someone _ told me I shouldn’t strain myself too much when posing.” Yaku’s classmates snicker, Suga especially. Suga is an agent of chaos, Yaku thinks, not for the first time.

“Don’t call me Yakkun,” Yaku says eventually, which makes everyone snicker louder. 

Kuroo’s timer rings and he picks up a squishy ball from the ground and spins it around on his finger like a basketball player. “I’m hurt, Yaku-san, truly I am.” 

“You are the most annoying life drawing model I have ever met,” Yaku says, darkening the shadows in his drawing with furious, harsh marks. 

Kuroo holds the ball with one hand and swivels around to give the art students a more interesting angle to draw from. “What about most handsome? Most charming?”

“Most utterly incapable of shutting the fuck up,” Yaku interrupts. Suga is laughing and has his phone out, probably live-texting the entire experience to Sawamura.

Kuroo just grins and starts the timer. A few minutes into his pose, when the professor’s playlist played Plastic Love for the third time in an hour, Kuroo asks, “can I play some of my band’s music?”

“You’re in a band?” asks everyone at once. Suga elbows Yaku  _ yet again, _ Yaku’s left side is probably covered in bruises at this rate. 

“Yup. I play keyboard. We have an EP out on Spotify, look it up.” The professor actually does put it on, because he’s a pretty chill dude as far as professors go. 

Kuroo’s band is good. Not quite Yaku’s taste, but he can tell they’re fairly polished. He looks at Kuroo’s long fingers holding the prop ball and imagines them on a keyboard, dancing along the piano keys and creating something new.

“If you don’t get his phone number by the end of class I’m going to get it for you,” Suga informs Yaku. Although Yaku is pretty sure the musical instrument put him out of Yaku’s league. 

They have a longer break then, and Kuroo’s surrounded by curious girls asking him questions about his band, how long they’ve been playing music, are they doing any concerts soon, stuff like that. Yaku fixes the highlights on his drawing with a kneaded eraser.

“You still didn’t draw my face,” Kuroo sighs, leaning one arm on Yaku’s shoulder. Yaku shrugs him off instinctively. He’d drawn guidelines for Kuroo’s features and a scribble for the disaster Kuroo calls a hairstyle, but not his actual face, mostly out of spite.

“I did say I take commissions.” Kuroo puts his arm on Yaku’s shoulder again. Yaku glares up at him. “Why must you keep doing that.”

“I want to see how much I can get away with,” Kuroo says frankly. “What about an...art trade, I’ve seen people on the internet do those. A song for a portrait.”

Yaku blinks. “I really don’t think that’s a fair trade. I definitely draw faster than it takes to write and perform and record an entire song.”

Kuroo sighs dramatically then, and says, “if I had five thousand yen to spend on a portrait of myself, I wouldn’t be posing naked for art students in between chem classes.”

Yaku can’t help it, he laughs, and it’s worth it for the way Kuroo lights up at the reaction. Kuroo looks like he wants to say something more, but his phone beeps loudly and he jolts. 

The last pose is 20 minutes, so Kuroo lies down on his stomach and props himself up on his elbows, facing the students. He pushes his bangs out of his face so Yaku has a clear view of Kuroo’s eyes, which are strangely focused in Yaku’s direction.

“Hey, Yaku, what do you do with a dead chemist?”

“Oh, no.” Yaku draws a line across Kuroo’s mouth on his drawing pad, as if that could somehow stop the actual Kuroo from finishing his terrible, terrible joke.

“You  _ barium.” _

Yaku’s charcoal actually snaps this time. “Oh my God.” Some of the girls in the class actually giggle at this, which is entirely uncalled for.

“Lying here quietly is boring,” Kuroo whines. At least he hasn’t drastically rearranged any of his limbs, and his head is in his hands so it’s not drifting to one side as the pose continues. “Especially when I’m surrounded by such interesting, attractive people! Hey, Yaku, are you made of copper and tellurium? Because you're CuTe.”

The girls in the class go “awwwww” and Yaku accidentally rips a hole in the thin newsprint paper. He’s pretty sure his face is the color of a tomato right now. “Flattery won’t get you a free portrait.”

“But will it get me a phone number?” The girl behind Yaku actually gasps.

“Yes,” says Suga.

“Maybe,” amends Yaku. “How many minutes left in this pose?”

After the pose, Kuroo pulls his robe on and sits on the platform, swinging his legs back and forth, before jumping down with a thump and bowing to Yaku. “Sorry if I made you uncomfortable Yaku-san. I didn’t really think about how it would feel to be put on the spot like that in front of your whole class, and I apologize.” He bows again, ridiculous hair crest flopping over his eyes.

Yaku stares at him incredulously, wondering where all that brazenness from a few minutes ago went. “Kuroo. It’s fine. If it wasn’t fine I would have said so immediately, you weirdo, calm down.”  

Kuroo pushes his bangs out of his eyes. “So uh, I really do think you’re cute, and funny. I wasn’t making fun of you.”

“Oh. Uh. Thanks.” Yaku’s not sure, exactly, what someone like Kuroo sees in him, especially not now when Yaku’s covered in charcoal smudges and frustration from drawing the legs wrong three times in one pose. “You...too?”

Behind Kuroo, Suga smacks a hand to his forehead. Drama queen.

“So uh, any chance of that phone number, or...” Kuroo looks so much more awkward and uncomfortable slouching in front of Yaku in his robe than he does posing on a platform with his entire body on display in front of a bunch of strangers, it’s kind of hilarious.

Yaku sighs and holds out his hand. “Give me your phone.”

**Author's Note:**

> my personal weird figure drawing story is when this girl from my high school but 2 years ahead of me was a model at the town art center and then during the first break she sat down next to me saying "don't I know you from somewhere" like I didn't just spend 20 mins drawing her naked  
> talk to me on [tumblr](http://cubistemoji.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](http://twitter.com/mashazart/)  
> if you did not come here from riin's incredible art [ please look at it ](https://twitter.com/qiliin/status/1103759795566362624) it's so good I died 3 times  
> 


End file.
